Cyber Kitties 1 as rebooted by Ka'avik
by Kaavik
Summary: Anthropomorphic cats, one of whom is a robot. Humans are normal, magic is available, high-tech is supposed to be common. This is a complete reboot / reimagining of the series using just characters & their interactions/tropes.
1. And What Army?

Chapter 1

Opening Scene or, prologue

Morgana violently unplugged the cat-7 cable from her laptop, scowling deeply enough to qualify as a professional at the expression. Having stared at the bee sod for nearly a minute, Alex roved over to the couch where Morgana sat, making whirring and clicking sounds as she did so. "Coffee, dear?"

Leaping to her full five foot seven inch height so she could stride past Alex before Morgana's escape route was cut off, the hacker replied haughtily "No, noodles. It's raining, and we're about to be raided by the FBI equivalent from the human dimension." Tail flicking to show her distaste, she strode from the tiny living room to the even tinier kitchen to add water to an instant noodle package.

"Do humans enjoy coffee?" The robot queen-cat asked, her ears twitching excitedly at the prospect of visitors.

Having missed several of her button presses on the microwave because her mood made keeping her claws retracted difficult, Morgana didn't even look at the shiny weapons specialist as she offered up a growled "Yes, Alex. I expect they do. Also being shot."

Alex dropped the coffee cup, spilling boiling hot blackness all over the industrial carpet squares just she could clap and jump like a little kitten, her golden eyes practically glowing; the apartment shook heavily enough that two glasses fell from the cupboards, and as Morgana only caught one of them, the other shattered as Alex exclaimed "I can serve them coffee AND set them on fire? **Oh!** **_Happy day!_**"

Chapter 2

Exit, Stage Burning

Tammi's slender frame was folded at nearly a right-angle so she could set her chin on Morgana's shoulder. As Morgana hadn't heard her room-mate sneak up she jumped just a tiny bit, fingers shrinking guiltily away from the keyboard. "Hi Tammi. Uh..."

"Who's Alex? Also, I didn't think your type called them 'bee sods', its bee ess oh dee, right?" Straightening up so she could stir what smelled to Morgana like hot chocolate, Tammi stared thoughtfully at the story on the screen for a breath before offering "Besides, I'd expect you'd want to name it, since then you could say 'screen of death'"

Whatever arcane mishap had stained Tammi's teeth the color of blood-oranges hadn't made her smile less kind. Sharp fangs and all, her grin at Morgana's textual escapades made her want to believe the world could be a nice place if you kept track of your joy. Then she remembered she considered herself to have a heart of ice, so she just shoved the keyboard back into place and stood up. She really was 5'7, and Tammi was north of five 11, and that didn't count her ears. "Alex is our new maid. Also she's built like a tank. You remember that one robot that followed us through your portal a couple weeks ago?"

Tammi's smile faltered, her stirring, stilled. "The one that cracked the garage's concrete slab when he tried to step on you?"

Morgana nodded, indicated in a general way the door to said garage. "I figured out where the encryption chip protecting his NVram was, and unsoldered it for a local, more manageable unit. Have been reprogramming him to be a her. She can be our heavy weapons specialist on the upcoming run." Morgana forgot about her heart, and looked to Tammi the hopeful, large round eyes of a kitten looking through a window where friends were supposed to be waiting.

Tammi sighed, and took a sip of her drink. "Hopefully you've shaved off some of 'her' weight? And, she won't really drop things to jump up and down about setting guests on fire will she?"

Now it was Morgana's turn to grin. "Only one way to find out! How about a short run? Something that calls for heavy weapons?" She pushed her chair up against the computer desk, sure she wouldn't have to cruise any of the local or interdimensional BBSs for such a job. Not today, hadn't Tammi just been talking to potential clients yesterday?"

Tammi carefully sipped again, making a point to look at the implied hallway between the living room and the kitchen. "Sort of." she started cautiously. "The mayor did ask the police to send a couple detectives our way."

Morgana's face fell. "Mayor? So we're dealing with dogs?"

Tammi's eyes hardened a bit, giving some warning of the bad news to Morgana before the words were spoken. "Actually Buck Moonstrider and Joe Howler are from the lunar and dimensional crime units. So, they're wolves."

Morgana's left hand was in the air in front of her, claws desperately extended in an attempt to hang on to this thing at a greater distance. Grimacing, she said "That's ... not an improvement."

Tammi was looking Morgana in the eye, again. "On the other hand, since the whozit that was stolen is now in another dimension, and held by well armed criminals, this needn't be a sneak in and snatch thing." Holding up her hand to blockade any bull-rush of happiness from the queen of sadness, she added "I don't know how large or delicate the thing is, so we'll still want to be circumspect."

Morgana accepted the conditions gracefully. Grinning finally, she told her business partner "Let's meet the new team member Alex, then."

The cracked concrete hadn't been repaired, but since it had been several months since the team had a working vehicle, the garage was mostly empty except the shelves around the edges holding all of Tammi's spell components, none of which were well labelled or sorted except perhaps by pungency of odor. Newly cleared, one particularly stout rack had been quickly emptied of its contents, which Morgana was going to explain had been split evenly between nearby shelves, but she saw Tammi's eyes go to those shelves and their new content first, inventorying what had been moved, before latching onto the six barrelled rotary machine gun, nearly bowing the shelf it sat on to the breaking point. The ten foot long belt of heavy rifle ammunition on the shelf beneath was not light either, though Morgana had been able to drag that in herself rather than use the then-empty robot, via wire to an old Atari controller to carry it in, like the gun had needed. Tammi's only comment was on the ammo in the belt, with "That's bigger than your pistol ammo, isn't it?"

Nodding enthusiastically Morgana answered "Yeah that's .308, this this is chambered in thirty ought-six. Same bullet but more powder. Now, I've got her programmed to think she and I met in grade school,"

Tammi finally looked at the robot that had nearly killed them, now polished up, dents repaired, and wearing a cheap costume coat to look like she was an orange tabby. The leg wigs were gray with a little orange added and didn't match at all. Also, in addition to not being one of the types that had genitalia added, "she" also hadn't had clothing added either. At the mention of school, however, Tammi did express some concern. "So, we all met at the same time? Is it going to matter that I don't know her very well?"

"_No!_ I mean, no, she's as dumb as a brick and I didn't think of you...don't look at me like that I can add you in later once we know where the major hurdles are. But she won't question anything I act like is normal. So you and I were in one class and she was in another, okay?" Morgana made her way to the dumb terminal that had been set up on the top shelf of Alex's storage area, and started typing.

Almost immediately, Alex's eyes lit up bright, golden, and blinking. She was sort of standing but plantigrade, so was the shortest of the cyber kitties for another few minutes. Tammi watched carefully as she asked "So, which class was I not in, then?"

Morgana had to stop and look around the garage to mentally find that answer. "So, see, I put her in the class I remembered the most about. So, that would be 8th grade biology."

Tammi had put her mug down to stuff some nearby components into a couple of pockets of her jacket and was walking to get her gear belt as she asked "That would be the one where you developed a crush on the pegasus?"

The frantic typing didn't slow down despite the desperate cry of "Yes that one! How was I supposed to know he was an interdimensional vampire? He was cute and I liked his poetry and he would talk about staining his wings so they would be black like his soul and I thought that was sweet."

Belt snapped into place, Tammi was checking the pouches for adequate levels of materials as she retorted gently "Well, there's the fact we don't have ptereppi. Unicorns yes but not winged horses. Also I read the police report and he was just playing at being a vampire. He was actually just a dirty old man who like eating girlfriends. He came here because he was on the lam for eating a lamb, I believe I told you."

Morgana spared a hand from typing to wave away the complaints. "You're the one with magical protections. I was an innocent young girl," Morgana politely ignored the derisive snort this earned. "And Alex..." More typing, before explaining that "Actually thought he was a unicorn and didn't, properly speaking, notice the wings." Slapping the enter key with authority, she made her way to the robot to unplug the power and control cables.

Alex had already stood up, digitigrade, to her full six foot one, and was looking around the room, blinking in confusion. She didn't seem to notice the small gray cat scramble up her frame, yank a cable out of the top of her skull, and jump down. She did eventually identify the tall, pale cat standing before her and shouted far louder than could ever be described as an 'indoor voice' "**HI I'M ALEX**."

Tammi smiled and nodded. "Hello Alex, I'm Tammi. Resident sorcerer." Concentrating on the floor between them, she waved her hands, extruded and contracted her claws, and made the dust rise, dancing into a swirl, then a square, then a tall cylinder, before letting it fall back to the ground. Morgana lost a moment watching the floor display and was heard to say "Whoa; just like a sand mandala. Our lives are truly just dust in the wind."

The slight hum and whistle of movement actuators could be heard as Alex turned around, saw Morgana and shouted her name "**HI MORGANA!**" then ran the half step over to lift her short friend off the floor in a bear hug. No bones were broken but the bruises examined when next Morgana would take a shower would imply it had probably been a near thing.

Morgana patted her tall friend as best she could, which earned her freedom. Catching her breath she quickly replied, managing to use a suitable indoor voice despite having the wind knocked out of her "Hi Alex have you Met Tammi? She's been my friend for about as long as you have."

The gold back-lighting from Alex's eyes was severed several times as she blinked. Then she turned, a little farther than should have been comfortable considering nothing below the waist moved. Alex extended a hand and said, matching the indoor voice this time, "Hi Tammi. I just moved in. It's great to meet you."

Tammi shook hands and welcomed Alex to the team. "We're actually just about to go ... somewhere. Our tour guides will be here soon if you'll be ready tonight."

The light from Alex's eyes intensified. "Will there be violence?" She turned to face the room mate which gave Morgana the opportunity to finish putting cables up out of the way of Alex's gun, which would prove useful in a moment.

Tammi was wincing, looking politely off into the distance. "Oh, I hate violence. I try to avoid it when I can. But maybe." Making eye contact with Alex now, she finished "There might be violence but I want to avoid it. You'll be bringing"

Alex accidentally knocked Morgana aside, causing the decker to emit a screech and a hiss as she righted herself. But Alex didn't notice because she had grabbed her 300lb rotary cannon with one hand, and was patting it to show Tammi she was prepared for any eventuality.

About that point there was a knock at the front door. "Wait, you called them already?"

Tammi nodded at Morgana. "Yeah, magical summons I figured we'd be late for the mortgage again so I told them it was more a matter of when than if so ..."

Morgana strode purposefully out of the garage, calling behind her "Fine yes gotta make that dollar. You start making a portal I'll bring the heat."

Just barely tipping the cannon far enough back to not catch on the door frame, Alex's firm retort of "But I'm the one packing." drowned out Tammi's soft "Can't make a portal if I don't know where we're going." So it should be no surprise Morgana replied to the robot that "No I mean the police."

2.1 Test Run

At the door was a wall of fur. Normally Morgana wouldn't be one to call out drifting motes of under-coat, but the wolves had a knack, even at the beginning of fall, to still be shedding in high gear. To the right, and in front, was the shorter detective, a certain Joe Howler, supposedly the force's most experienced detective. Politely to his right, and behind him, was an even taller mass of gray, with about a foot of tongue hanging loose below the blue eyes. All the jokes it the world about a mr. Moonstrider being on the Lunar crime unit couldn't bring down his sheer joy.

Morgana felt physically ill every time she had to look at his vapid smile. And of course, it was the taller one who spoke first. "Miss Morgana! So glad you folks could help. Pirates have stolen the crown jewels from the local museum and from the video clips they're a bit too well equipped to just waltz in on our own."

"Aren't they fake? We haven't honored any monarch's crown in ... centuries?"

The tongue disappeared again long enough for the associated head to bob in agreement. "Naturally but it would be all kinds of awkward; filing a claim, and ordering new ones. Plus the insurance rates would skyrocket."

Morgana's left eyebrow arched in supreme superiority over the right eyebrow. "You have to pay insurance on fake jewels?"

Now it was the wizard with the brown coat wearing a brown coat who answered, nodding gravely. "Yes, ma'am. Those replicas are made and certified by the history company overseas that licenses their likenesses from the actual jewel owners."

Morgana sighed, and turned to go back to the garage. "Sure guys! Not like I had anything better to do than risk life and limb for random forgeries!"

At the garage, the door to the driveway had been cleared to allow everyone through, and some of the materials were gathered but nothing painted yet. Joe piped up with a jovial "Miss Tammi! So good to be working with you again." As he strode over to her, fishing through his overcoat's pockets for notes on how to open this particular portal.

As the shorter wolf, who had retractable claws that Morgana had never felt comfortable asking about, and the pale-coated hippy began painting together the marks and delimiters of the doorway the group would use in a moment, the taller wolf drifted over to Morgana. She hadn't seen him do so, nor heard him speak yet, but she was riding on the edge of a sneeze all of a sudden and she could swear there was a fog of hair filling her vision.

It wasn't long before the happy face was leaning over to whisper into her ear, a stout immobile claw hoving into her vision to indicate Alex, who was watching the magic users and trying to tap her gun's muzzle against the ceiling in time, as if it was a literal tribal dance. "What is _that_?"

Alex's body didn't respond or miss a beat, but Morgana saw the silver-colored ear nearest them rotate a hundred and thirty degrees to center on the pair. Thinking fast, she said "Siamese."

Buck Moonstrider straightened up, and considered the shiny metal face, the cheap, glued-on faux orange fur, and the 300lbs pistol being tapped lightly into the ceiling. Then he looked down and considered Morgana's dark brown coat and pale face lines. Morgana had never researched her genealogy but was probably about half siamese and half american street cat, but she had always filled out those surveys with "doesnt matter" as her breed. She was pretty sure Alex could pass the same lines to passersby. Once, Morgana had to admit, more and better chosen fur was applied. Tonight, Buck asked dryly "Uh huh. And is the siamese coming with us?"

"She's the explosives expert, in case we need to break a wall down." Mentally running through her programming efforts while meeting Joe's disbelieving gaze unblinkingly, she had to admit Alex wouldn't have a clue what an explosive was. But she should be able to just bust down any wall, KoolAidMan style, which ought to be explosive enough for anyone.

Alex had stopped tapping the ceiling, but her ears were also both forward. The painting aspect was done, and both casters were walking back up to the group. That they were both magic casters was obvious, but before Morgana could put together why she was noticing that now, Alex had dropped her gun in surprise and staring, mouth agape, at Tammi, then at Joe. "I think your eyes are funny" was her very confused remark.

Joe had heard this before and didn't seem offended to point out "Yes, that's right. Anyone who can wield magic has heterchromia. Although the reverse is hardly true, four out of five folks with different colored eyes can at least sense, if not move magic.

Alex was covering her right eye with her right hand. "That eye is blue. And yours" She turned Tammi, who had a soft smile at the prospect of explaining magic to the uninitiated. Or maybe she just tolerated children better than Morgana did. "is mostly blue but has stripes too!" Next Alex switched, putting her right hand out to point at Joe as she covered up her left eye. "Green! and ... green? And yellow?"

Tammi nodded and told Alex "Yes, green with yellow speckles ... dots, in other words. And blue streaked with white. But how fancy my eyes look doesn't mean as much as that they're different, like detective Joe Howler said."

Joe was quietly looking nervously at Buck, who shrugged. Alex picked her gun up and grinned in a fair attempt at looking like a Cheshire. Morgana mentally shuddered at the thought of having been bitten with the chasing-robot's giant, super-powered jaws.

Tammi was the one to energize door. Morgana remembered she had explained once that while the painting could be shared with another caster, or anyone who understood what the markings meant, only one could open the door, or it would explode. Usually at the other end, but that still meant you couldn't go through it and would have to start over, preferably picking a different endpoint that hadn't just been incinerated by miscommunication and magic.

Morgana was trying to compose a sonnet about wilderness incinerations by eager beavers, when Joe loudly declared the door to be open. All five of them strode through what was supposed to be a closed garage door to find themselves in a lush forest's edge, the grass ankle high which meant a bit more for digitigrade walkers like this crowd. It appeared to be late afternoon, there were no city lights to be found, and indeed from where she was standing there was also no city, even lightsless, to be found. "I feel obligated to point out I didn't grab a flashlight."

Joe took out a baton from somewhere inside his overcoat, and holding it over him like an umbrella, tapped the shaft twice, at which point it lit up brightly enough to keep anyone from tripping over their own tail, should it prove pitch black sometime soon. There was also a blue ball hovering around the baton's tip which seemed to mostly hold still – probably indicating the direction to the stolen items.

Alex was casually feeding the ammo belt into her giant five barreled pistol as she asked Morgana "You normally carry a fleshlight on jobs? How would that even work?"

Tammi managed to choke her laughter down into a single sound. The boys pretended not to hear as Morgana soundly corrected the ... siamese gunner. "FLASH light. Not _flesh_. Completely different thing."

Draping her ammo belt across her shoulders like a feather boa, Alex just said "If you say so."

Ten minutes of walking, Joe Howler leading the way, his long overcoat making 'swish, swish' sounds the whole time, and finally they could see buildings. Or at least a wooden wall, like a picket fence only with small trees instead of cut pickets, and no paint only bare, untreated wood, and no gaps or cross beams like picket fences had. Morgana _HAD_ to enshrine this in verse.

pirates den of villainy, scum, and zirconium

grass, sky, fences all arranged to peturb ya'

cops and mercs practicing homey zen.

Where we are, is SO not suburbia.

Just then the blue dot turned red, and Joe dropped to his knees, exclaiming "They know we're here" But Tammi had felt it too, and with a haduken double handed thrust, a cone of color erupted, the widest point being the most opaque; a shield should a spell or a bullet be inbound. Morgana drifted so that cone was between her and the fence-wall ahead, but for several seconds, nothing moved.

Then Alex was laughing hysterically, which was hard to hear over the roar of her cannon, tracer rounds showing two running biped figures near the top of the wall, hoping to open fire through the gaps between the spikes. They didn't, but to her left Morgana saw the muzzle flash too late to duck, but fortunately none of the bullets whizzing by were close enough to singe anything.

Buck had a small shotgun at his shoulder. Morgana didn't think his attire had been roomy enough for a real firearm, but the signature 'thwok, thwok BOOM' was clearly the sound of a pump action being rapid fired. Joe pointed at one of the two figures who had re-positioned to evade Alex's fire, and instead got hit by Joe's fire. It was literal fire, and the walking torch helped illuminate the catwalk they were using to get into firing position without exposing any gaps in their wall-fence.

For Morgana's part, she had come equipped to dive headlong into the wires and electronways of the city, not unlike the one she left in 2063, gaining momentum from the updrafts of data; a kestrel made from her own soul; a digital hayabusa dancing the airwaves.

...this, this was more like one of those RPG vids that one boyfriend had spent all his time playing, where you pretend to be a viking and punched vampires in the face. The game had seemed too blunt and lacking in subtlety, or perhaps she was just seeing that in the boyfriend and blamed the video game for causing the breakup a scant half hour into their relationship. Tammi would later tonight remind her of how many boyfriends Morgana had broken up with, although she never understood the sorcerer's point when she would say things like that.

She only had 10 rounds for her bolt action pistol, and one spare magazine for her homebuilt MacCentimeter. Drawing her submachine gun from her backpack, she was _poetically aware_ it wasn't called the MacCentimeter. It was more properly called 'the old garage door after some tin snips and a TiG welder' or maybe it should be called "alcohol tobacco & firearms should have been a convenience store not more stifling regulations'. Racking the firing bolt into place, Morgana decided to forget what it was called. Tonight, it was called Hot Death From Goth Kitty.

A bolt of flame came down from the ... _well, they're not parapets. Not even a pair o' pets. Crenelations divine but I hate this architecture._ and Tammi deflected it with an outstretched claw. Morgana pointed at **that** region, and let loose a small barrage of lead, none of which hit anything so far as she could tell. _About like a no-choke sawed-off loaded with one and three quarter inch double ought. _

_Speaking of which, __**don't choke!**__ Only diet coke!_ Some sort of 'taur, shorter than Morgana, had slithered just above the grass in the failing light and loud pandemonium, only now to stand erect with an ice pick in each hand, or so it seemed. Feeling comfortable finally with hand to hand scrapping _Just like the streets growing up_ Morgana lunged into a high kick, hitting would would be the solar plexus in a biped. It slowed the thing down enough that the two handed strike missed her knee, and she followed one kick with another, this time a spinning jump kick claws first, ripping much of the skin off the attacker's very small face. She didn't stop to query it what species it was, what it had for lunch, or if they could stop fighting. Morgana grabbed one of the ice picks, found it to actually be an inward curving kitchen knife on the end of a stick, but the pointy end was still pointy, and she buried it into her attacker's throat.

That was it; she'd taken the final life of the battle, as now that she was beginning to breathe normally again she remembered Alex's rotary cannon had spun down just before the kickboxing routine began. Only a few shots from the shotgun, and one bolt out and two in in that whole time. Morgana switched to the full magazine and put her opened garage door back into her pack. The dead ... 'taur thing wasn't wearing or carrying anything aside from the slightly out of place Japanese kamas, which she didn't want to carry around.

There was no door, and the general feeling was the group could probably find the door they'd used to get in. Alex did offer "Do you want me to **MAKE** a door?" but the two males firmly declined the... _siamese's_ offer. It ended up being unneeded as the next corner had a gate. It looked like the walls but could be opened, suspended a half an inch off the ground. Morgana was considering verses about continuity and conformity of being a wall even if you were a door, but was interrupted by Alex's shouting as she ran through the door, gun held out and pointed at every crevice that might hide another pirate.

The indicator on Joe's baton was blue again, and nothing hopped out of any corner. Buck had reloaded his stumpy pump action, and Tammi was holding her thumb to a middle finger, and the ring finger on the other side – arcane halfway points for unleashing a spell. Joe didn't need to do that but, as it had been explained to her, that's because he's a wizard. _No soul, only casting with his head_.

There was surprisingly little furniture inside the walls. Easily four thousand square feet, several ladders and a few platforms, but no crates, no boxes, no more enemies, and no jewels. "Aww. What do I shoot at now?" Alex said as she raised her cannon to an upright 'ready' state.

Buck's comment was "I thought this was a pocket dimension already." as he put his shotgun into a pair of clips at the back of his belt. He was looking at Joe, whose baton was indicating a purple wall against one of the platform's sides.

Tammi, hands back in her pockets again, was the one who replied. "It would seem we will need to go deeper."

As everyone shifted directions to converge around the purple wall, Joe mumbled "or go further out" and Morgana still couldn't understand what they were talking about until she was nearly at the purple wall, and realized it was another portal. Unlike the one they'd come through in the garage, this was opaque, but shimmered and sparkled in much the same way. Joe turned to look at Alex, who only had one hand full, and asked her "Alex? Can you hold this for me?" holding out the baton. Morgana glanced over as nonchalantly as she could muster, while mentally going over her programming of the new team member. It should work out fine, and Alex would even know to give it back afterwords. Probably.

With both hands free and adequate light, Joe made to 'scratch' arcane symbols from his 'head based' system into the door. Nothing happened so far as she could tell, but Tammi startled giggling. "If I'm seeing it right, that's a really tiny pocket dimension? What happens when they collapse the outer pocket?"

Morgana blinked. What did happen? "Can they do that? Are we so soon to be mated forever with the oblivion of eternal darkness? That is to say, should we be hurrying?" _If I'm to be squished by a collapsing dimensional rift, I would like it to at least be raining_.

But Tammi assuaged her fears. "We'd be pushed out into our garage. Mostly because that's the only door open here. If the pirate's corporate casters, or whoever, were to open another door and close harshly? We'd probably be dumped into their warehouse instead. It's all pretty straightforward, the cosmos telling what belongs here, and what doesn't."

Joe seemed only to hear half of that, stepping back from the door and saying of it, without looking behind him, "Excellent idea. On point everyone, this is a small storage room but it could still have enemies in it ... or enough furniture, or gold coins for that matter, to crush us."

"Crushed by untold wealth

Nothing more ironic, yes?

your wishes kill you."

Alex swiveled her head, and said "That didn't rhyme" Blinked confusedly several times, then rotated her head back to the door where Joe drawing more, bigger symbols. Sweeping strokes that left wakes and eddies in the purple opacity.

Tammi patted Alex on the shoulder and explained "it was haiku, dear. Its also a type of poetry. Five syllables, seven, five. Tanka is the longer form with five, seven, five seven seven. Also, did you catch there's a small chance you'll need to shoot something?" Alex nodded enthusiastically and focused intently on the wall, which was now nearly to black. Tammi stepped back and held her spells at that half cocked stage while Buck crouched down a little, ready to dodge or run up as needed.

About the time Morgana wondered why everyone who wasn't Joe was close to the wall at all, it was over. Joe took half a step back so he could lean forward and 'grab' the wall and pull for all he was worth, claws out and glowing with arcane force. The wall didn't bend, but it lost its opacity, and everything on the far end looked distorted, elongated. As the distortion rapidly shifted, all the items that weren't the walls or floor came rightly into focus, then were lobbed through the door, missing Joe by inches.

Two rough hewn wooden tables, three matching chairs, two very bright stones that went kerthud and disappeared into the mud, which was a feat in itself because no one else was sinking in at all, and a fancy treasure chest looking box, and a rough hewn milk crate looking thing. The platform didn't, it would seem, have a wall, purple or otherwise.

Buck was already leaping toward the chest, as the milk crate just had bars of soap. A hundred of them, probably. Tammi was going after one of the kerthud stones, and Joe was retrieving his baton successfully from Alex, who was still examining everything that came out of the portal for signs of motion. "Nothing more to shoot, then?"

"No, but you can help me lift this Alex?" Tammi was actually digging with her bare claws to expose the shiny 'stone'. Alex came over and picked it up between thumb and forefinger. It was maybe eight inches long, and two inches thick. Morgana couldn't see how wide it was, but Tammi's eyes were as wide as saucers.

By this time Joe had walked to the other 'stone' and staring at it, said "I bet there'll be someone who wants these. We should keep them at the station."

Finally realize what she was looking at, Morgan rolled her eyes and proclaimed "Let me get this straight. Our boys came from who knows where, straight outta the outer limits, and stole some fake jewels not worth anything past their licensing costs ... and two gold bullion ingots."

"I bet there'll be a finder's fee for retrieving them." Buck helpfully said, hefting the the treasure chest awkwardly. "We'll make sure you get compensated for returning them." Joe was at this point carrying the other ingot, almost as awkwardly as Buck's haul.

2.2 Next Day

"I can't believe you just let him take the other ingot." Tammi was almost never this worked up, actually. But she had been holding a third to half a million dollars in her hand, except for the part where it had only been in Alex's hand.

"You wanted me to give his glowy baton back, and he said the ingot was his too." Alex was arguing somewhat unnaturally, moving only her torso and head, not moving anything else like her feet or her arms. "And that cute buck, Buck, said thieves lose and heros move. Or something like that."

Morgana had found a bearskin rug in that pocket dimension, and had brought it back before Tammi closed out the doorway. It wouldn't make a great siamese coat, but could be used to good use facilitating a new coat that looked less fake. Morgana spent a few moments before she'd started cutting, thinking of what prayers, verses, or thoughts could be offered up, because this very much wasn't fake fur; it had come from a bear. And she didn't, properly speaking, know if it had come from a bear person, or a feral, like a pet cat only bigger, and probably angrier. But considering there were absolutely no indicators anywhere amongst the pirates or their things, that any of them came with fur coats, or that anything resembling cannibalism was happening, Morgana had decided to assume it had been a feral, and she would not be insulting any bears the crew met in coming years if she glued this to her new best friend.

Aloud, and without looking away from her craft project, she said "There's a chance we'll get our merc money doubled. Also, that whole escapade was a great way to refine some programming choices. For example." She paused long enough the siamese wouldn't, at this age and time in her life, realize they were talking about her, before looking up at the glowing golden eyes. "Do you think Buck said that because he was hitting on you?"

Tammi choked on her laughter again, covering her mouth and trying to make it look like she was scratching her nose. The golden eyes blinked slowly, and again, before blinking at the normal rate a third time. "Yes, I think he probably likes me."

Morgana nodded, and went back to cutting a long thin strip for the tail. But for this to work, she needs to be asleep. Without looking up, she said "C'too-loo f-thawggin, eeya nigh-ya lartho tep."

And the golden lights went dim. Alex slowly sank to her plantigrade stance, and stopped entirely. Tammi raised an eyebrow and offered a golf clap. "Can I do that, or is there voice recognition too?"

Carrying the tail-intended strip with her as she went to the shelf with the epoxies, she answered "If she goes with me to the clubs I hang out at? That could genuinely be the lyrics to the song. But now that she's heard you speak I can work your entry in too."

"You know, if you really want folks to believe she's your friend since third grade, you'll need to get her some clothes. Especially if you're trying to get her into the dating scene."

Morgana shrugged as she started slathering the epoxy components onto Alex's tail. "You didn't think the cheshire jaw with razor blades for implied teeth was the first giveaway?" The strip Morgana had cut was just a little too narrow to wrap around the tail length wise so she had to start wrapping the whole thing spirally. Scowling at this, she added "It's raining. I'm going to cook up some noodles and eat on the roof and be melancholy."

"Why not be bitter sweet? Then you could switch between happy and sad as often as you wanted."

Morgana shook her head. "No. Hertz rates are for computer parts. Melancholy." Looking up from her work, she did wink at her roomate, who had been her friend since third grade, not 8th as Alex was programmed to think, and added "I may drift to maudlin at times though, remembering how close we were to having a pure gold bar stamped "good" on it.


	2. Free Lance, 5-fingered Discounts Availab

Through the netherworld, the never-never of electronic abyssal neural interfaces, drifted a certain kestrel. At the speed of thought her wings reacted to the updrafts of data; the sudden plummeting cold of information sinks. Navigating even beyond the pale, the doorway ahead was indescribably far away, and clearly right in front of her.

"Haven't you been in there all morning?" Came to this certain kestrel. But that was meat space and Morgana used her meat-space hand to wave her off. "Well, let me know when you want breakfast."

"Its not like the tuna will get any colder. I'm hoping for a lead on a job here."

"Interdimensionally? So long as they take cats, I guess." But this certain kestrel had already committed to medium-term memory, visible at the corner of her vision, the coordinates for how to create a portal here, if work was indeed forthcoming.

Floating a bit more, there was a door, as large as the world itself, holding a door of eternal blackness almost as large as the world. Over the archway was inscribed "Shadow Lands"

**2.1 eggs & bacon & philosophy**

In the real world, and at the local place, a certain siamese with glowing eyes and a towering frame that cracked lesser floors, was cooking eggs while her roommates argued about entering a BBS in a place that did not exist. Alex knew it did not exist because she could not see it. She could see many things; the heat of the flame coming from her 'burning' finger, the flashing blue lights that helped the pale one''s phone tell the cylinder what musical noise to make. It did not look like teeth, but she could see that blue light just the same. She could see the radio station across town, if she squinted, its rays spoke to her of bathroom tissue and turkey dinners. She could see the cylinder in her apartment where Morgana kept some of the things she couldn't fit into her own room, such as this green glowing thing that illuminated her roommates bones when they walked by it.

But when she looked at her friend Morgana, Alex saw she was wearing a covering over her eyes, like when Tammi was sleeping she would wear one too. And Tammi said it was so she could see her dreams easier, and those didn't exist either. So she concluded her friend was sleep-walking and was talking in that odd sleep she had when all the wires were tied up to her fingers and head.

The egg needed to be flipped over, and it was sticking so she couldn't just jiggle the pan. Alex would have grabbed the egg, but the hot pan would damage her coat across her fingertips, and Morgana had gotten angry the last time she had to help her coat regrow so she shouted out to Tammi "Where are the cooking flippers?" but received no reply.

So Alex retrieved a plate to put the eggs on, and put the plate upside down over the eggs, then flipped the whole concoction, but realized there was no free counter space to put the declared-cooked eggs so she carefully held the pan in her mouth as she moved some dirty dishes onto the pile growing in the sink. As she tried to find the balance point for the two stacks of bowls she realized the pan was trying to slip because the base was deeply curved. As it was still hot and she didn't want to anger Morgana by singing her face fur, she bit down more firmly to keep it still.

Dirty dishes successfully stacked she placed the still-hot over easy, she'd guess, cooked eggs down and took the frying pan out of her mouth. It was dented. For a long moment, Alex was of the opinion the dents were not real, because when she looked at the pan, there were places where she couldn't see it, therefore the dents must not exist, because she couldn't see them. But on the fourth visual verification, she realized she could also see the pan where she should not have; therefore she could see the pan, and the disparity between where the pan should be, and should not be but was, gave her the understanding that the dents were real.

Unlike cyber space, she could see these dents, and that made them real. Feeling self satisfied at her smug reasoning, she emitted flames to re-heat the pan so she could also cook bacon. As with the eggs, and the dents in the pan, there was definitely bacon being cooked.

2.2 Job discussions

Morgana found a discussion thread about bacon, in which an ork was asking if folks liked it cooked until crispy, until brown, or just until the oil started dripping off. An elf and a human took turns answering each other about the relative merits of eating bacon at all while a dwarf kept butting in to say he was lost.

Then she found that dwarf had posted elsewhere about needing a samurai-mage to retrieve some stolen jewels. While six different individuals responded that samurais didn't have enough of their soul left to cast magic, Morgana considered responding but for two problems: she wasn't sure either Alex or herself counted as a "samurai" by this dwarf's opinion, or that he would be willing to hire three mercenaries, even if they were willing to split a portion as if they were one person. Also, this query was two months old.

Feeling curious, this certain kestrel flew up again into the updrafts and looked for references to these particular jewels. They had been stolen, probably by the dwarf and whatever team he'd put together, but the buyer had also posted that the dwarf was either dead or a two-timer, which amounted to the same thing.

Since she couldn't, today, with the search terms she was using, find any jobs for hackers of her caliber (or any other, to be honest) she researched everything she could about where the jewels were probably holed up at. Then this kestrel took again to the virtual skies, spreading the wings of her soul abroad .. and almost smacked into a sentry bot leaving the BBS.

But avoiding that snafu, she found her way back to the tiny little hole in the information superhighway's smallest arterials, connecting a bakery in Hong Kong to a fracture in the multiverse, and made her way back into this universe. All of her was here, and she could feel her vitality return as her two halves rejoined.

Bending her fingers to indicate to her computer she was jacking out now, Morgana ripped the goggles off while her programs closed themselves. Taking off the wires from her fingers, she found Tammi sitting at the coffee table nearby, sipping something hot. "How'd you like to make another jewel run?"

"You were in there a long time." Was Tammi's response. Her look of concern made Morgana reconsider if, rather than feel alive now, it was more, being half in this universe and half in that one had more properly speaking, made her feel dead. "Well, it wouldn't hurt to try. Do you have an address?"

Morgana found a scrap of paper and wrote down what she remembered. "There's a warehouse in the bad part of town, in a city near north end of Nepal. I think in our world we call that India but they separate the two places." While Morgana expounded on what she knew of the thieves' treasure den, Alex brought out a plate of scrambled eggs scattered with bacon bits. Freshly crisped and crumbled by the look of it.

Looking over the offering, Tammi exclaimed "Your cooking skills are improving, Alex. We still have a kitchen, I hope? And will you be able to help wash dishes soon?"

Morgana coughed, and expelled the generic warning "She'll need ... gloves! Gloves to keep, you know, her hands dry."

The bright golden glow from Alex's eyes was, as the two cats were used to now, cut off as she blinked slowly before Alex replied "I can dry my hands pretty quickly." A huge gout of flame erupted from her left index finger, which was still uncapped. "And you said you sealed up my cuts where the water made me feel funny last time."

Morgana nodded, and added "Yes but I think you should probably just plan on wearing gloves when you wash dishes. Something about the water at this place just doesn't seem to sit well with you." Tammi avoided laughing by patting Alex consolingly on the arm.

And then Tammi took Morgana's notes to the garage, which was a good sign because that's where the portal making components were. Also the space needed to make a portal in the first place. Somehow Alex never thought to question why her roommates were always barging into what Alex had come to interpret as 'her bedroom' so there was no need to warn her that all three would probably be crowded into there sometime soon.

2.3 Drain the Swamp (Please!)

Coordinates probably locked into place, Tammi was levitating, cross legged, her tail vibrating and twitching alternately as she felt with her feelings, as opposed to her fingers which was locked into some mind bending twisted arrangement to maintain the flow of energies. Morgana never questioned Tammi's techniques but occasionally, when she was impatient, like now, she was sorely tempted to ask if this was the fasted way to attach a garage door to a wall near where they were going.

Alex had somehow been able to watch that sci-fi flick where the robot rode around on a motorcycle with a sawed off lever action shotgun, and had subsequently built herself one, which she carried in her off hand. The rotary cannon was of course in her primary hand. Since this universe had a BBS that employed PGP technology just for normal forum posts, she felt pretty confident her computer cables would prove useful here. But just the same she had her pair of spray-and-prays and a machete in case things got less digital.

The garage door faded from view, and at first Morgana was stoked. It was raining! And kinda dark. Surely this was a world where her poetically minded soul would flourish, where melancholy and the art of lockpicking danced in harmony under the baleful glare of sodium streetlamps.

Only, there were no streetlamps. This was a forest. Tammi jammed her legs down to catch herself and said "This is as close as I can get to what is probably the warehouse you're looking for." Then, obviously she had opened her eyes because her next comment was "Eew. Rainy forests stifle my energies."

Alex was blinking harshly, her legs tensing. "So? Are we ready?"

Do robotic cats come with rust-proofing? Aloud, Morgana murmured "Yes" even though walking through wet grass was pretty low on her 'ways to feel complete' list. Alex, not surprisingly, ran through first, and swept her guns through a one hundred and eight degree arc, looking for anything that might be planning on shooting at them. Apparently forgetting that there was an entirely different world behind her and around the door, she hung her rotary cannon on her belt and set her shotty against her shoulder.

Tammi withdrew a scimitar, of all things, and ran a claw along it until it glowed a pale blue, then held it above her to act as a very inadequate umbrella. That left Morgana to jump out and look to the side, behind the door, to find ... more forest. Also there was mud seeping up between her toes and she could see moonlight reflected in pools, some quite large. This wasn't just a rainy city at night, it was a wet swamp and she hadn't yet adjusted for the low light levels. "This is not poetic. This is miserable, and not the good kind."

Alex patted her on the shoulder, driving the rain already accumulated against her skin while offering a heartfelt "You never know Morgana – you might meet the unicorn of your dreams here!"

While Morgana was contemplating how to respond to dating advice from a juvenile robot in a foreign swamp during a retrieval job, Tammi pointed. "There's a building over there. Maybe that's what we're looking for?" The indicated direction was in fact, somewhat behind them. Perhaps one-thirty degrees turn to the right from where they stepped out, but Morgana understood now why the door had anchored here, as three sycamores had interwoven in such as way as to almost form a natural wall, just the size of their door. This would, she'd noticed from other merc jobs, make 'attaching' the door much easier on Tammi, who needed to concentrate almost as hard to close the door as open it ... always a component of a job to consider.

They all started squelching through the mud towards the concrete walls, Alex striding purposefully in front, Tammi to the left with her illuminated umbrella, and Morgana to the right, picking out the least deep portions of mud. Then Alex stopped, and squinting a little, said "They're going to start shooting at us."

Morgana dropped and half somersaulted through a particularly wet puddle to crouch behind a sycamore bush, for lack of a better term. Tammi had already doused her scimitar and was sidling left to crouch behind something that hopefully wasn't the local equivalent of poison ivy, but it would at least obscure her outline, unless they had a robot with wide-spectrum vision like Alex did.

Morgana had taken the safety off her hunting pistol when she realized Alex hadn't moved at all, and didn't particular concerned. Tammi had noticed too, and offered a misbegotten sigh, but Morgana hissed "How many are there?" Which at least made Alex move, as she swept her gaze across the whole building.

"Three" She had not moved her guns from their resting places, and had neither retreated nor called out a charge.

Tammi, sounding thoughtful, asked "What are they?"

"Guns."

That left both the girls silent for a moment as they considered the game of twenty questions with a naif, their lives in the balance. Morgana tried "Are they moving?"

But Tammi took the question up a notch, asking "Are they moving like they're walking around, or just like they're a head and a neck, looking back and forth?"

"Back and forth. Also up and down." _Turrets_. Less bad than many things. "Also I guess they might not have seen us. They'd stopped and looked right at us but now they're back to normal patrolling." Morgana had to consciously stifle her retort of '_chin up Alex, you could meet the turret of your dreams on this run_'

Standing up, she squinted and tried to see the turrets. The building was still a football field away, and the clouds obscured the moonlight something awful. They'd traveled a fifth of the way from the door to the building, and hadn't heard a footfall, splashing, or any insects. _Also, wasn't Nepal known for being a mountainous desert? What happened on this earth that it wasn't_? She told Alex "Let me know if you see them start focusing on me." and started walking. This time she chose the darkest routes.

She would have liked to have a blanket to hold in front of her; it would probably confuse the turrets' understanding of movement. As it was, when she had to cross an open lake, maybe fifteen feet across and shimmering from the diffused remains of moonlight, she accepted the splashing as best she could and dropped behind an ivy/sycamore bundle just as Alex's shout came to her. She paused a time, and still not hearing anything to imply someone was listening, shouted back "Do they train on my voice? Or did they keep roving?"

Alex and Tammi had only eased forward another ten feet, and Morgana could see a gap in the fur coat between Alex's wrist and forearm catch the light; her eyes had fully adjusted now and she could almost _feel_ them glowing a luminescent, angry color in the blockaded moonlight. Alex was pointing out what she was seeing, and Tammi trying to interpret and suggest. Finally she saw Alex cup her hand to her mouth to shout "Doesnt look like it. Just keep getting upset by us back here, is all."

That told Morgana several things about the logic boards in the turrets. They were designed to not ever waste ammo on game animals that might wander through, but Alex's relatively hulking frame drew their ire, as did Morgana's own mad, bipedal dash to darkness. _Do you remember how hard it is to get mud out of your claw pockets?_ Morgana dropped to all fours, and hoped her gear harnesses kept her electronics tight and away from the mud. Away she scrambled, still straining her neck to see the darkest routes but now she was local wildlife. Reminding herself to look for an accidental wall of rotting deer carcasses, she wondered how long they would last in this swamp before even the bones would be unlocatable.

Forty feet away from the concrete edifice, no doors on this side that she could see but still crawling on all fours, and there was no more cover. But now she could see the turrets. She crouched, and eased her bulk out of the shadows. One turret, the closest and also the only one to her right, 'zwipped' off course and pointed at her. It was a single barrel design, not rotary like Alex's pistol. But those kinds could still flood the no man's land with hot lead in no time. Turrets were always built to be bullet hoses; inaccurate but with more ammo available. Morgana held her breath and watched the turret out of the corner of her eye. The other two were still scanning, which implied they didn't communicate one with another, but until she could get into one she wouldn't know.

The turret's new pattern was different, sweeping the area around her in a zig-zag. No slower than the others that were just going back and forth but it implied that it was looking for what it might have missed ... which implied its field of vision was pretty small. _How sheer is that wall? How far? _The turrets were close to the edge but not on it. She should be outside their range of motion for four feet from the bottom of the wall, and probably get a hand and maybe an arm right up to the ledge before they could see or shoot her, no matter how prescient their sensor and programming.

Twelve feet up. Flat concrete but it had been repurposed. There were former-windows, one filled with bricks would be great but it was down nearer the farthest turret. Here, almost right under the turret that hadn't quite stopped looking for her, was a concrete square that was badly poured, knobbly. Above it something, like a wooden rail, was embedded in the wall. And again, between the rail and the ledge, were two steel L-beams embedded and sticking out. It wasn't much, but she could make it work out. What word had she invented for conflicting emotions she wasn't comfortable with?

"Wonkity."

When the turrets were at their furthest points in their wanderings, Morgana leapt out and ran pell mell for the wall. All three turrets saw her and fired. Every bullet went behind her; she heard the supersonic crack, felt her whole backside getting soaked by the splashing. But she was right. Two steps after they'd started shooting, they stopped. It was even sooner than she'd dared hope; their gimbals didn't let them look down far enough to shoot the building even by accident or drone spoof. That meant in turn she could crawl under the one she was at to disable it, and quite possibly the other two would be prevented from shooting their brother.

Of course, they would alert their boss of their conundrum. But one crisis at a time, sister.

Her friends had taken the moment of distracted shooting to advance meaningfully. Or maybe they were worried they'd have to figure a way to retrieve her corpse so they could bury it. _We're too poor to have life insurance though_. But she'd forget to ask later and it didn't matter to her plans, just now.

She was scraping her clothing, skin, against the concrete with every motion. But it was climbable. Of course on her first attempt the original wall had 'grabbed' her designer jeans and undone three of the five buttons holding them in place. Grumbling about how dirty the building's mind was, she took her pants off and stuffed them into her backpack. This gave her a freer range of motion but also made her back stick out more. Once she reached the L beams, she was too careless about hauling herself up, and heard the turret 'zwip' into focus. No shots were fired, but it happened again even pressing herself as flat as she could muster to stand on the L beam and balance against the underside of the ledge. Hoping it would work out, she held her backpack out from her body and started swinging it in one hand, then jumped up and grabbed the ledge hard with the other hand, and tossed her pack at what she hoped was the base of the turret.

Shots were fired, and she heard the other two turrets 'zwip' and clank hard, against their rotation governors. Excellent. Now she just needed to get herself up there without getting shot, hope her gear hadn't been destroyed with that last maneuver, and get behind the turret to figure out the best way to disable it.

Darkened sky, heated lead, lewd concrete.

I jump to my joy and triumph, or doom my forgotten remains

to a watery grave in eternal moonlight.

Stupid robots.

Fortunately those same people who weren't around to crack wise about her attire choices for the evenings event, also couldn't present their findings on the likelihood of either this place having no lunar cycle such that it might not be a full moon some day, or that it might indeed have a day, and even a dry season. Morgana would have spit on such critics, if they'd shown themselves just now, and pinned her ears at them.

Instead she pinned her ears at the turrets as she tossed her backpack, with her pants and all her hacking hardware over the ledge to bounce against the turret, which objected loudly, lethally, and seemed to have missed. A split second later all three turrets turned to her friends (was she so soon counting the reprogrammed robot a friend? Screw it, yes she was) and unleashing a string of lead punctuated with fire. Gripping the ledge tightly, she took her cue and leapt to her death, or theirs.

The turret she was next to, saw her, and turned. But it couldn't look down far enough to risk damaging the concrete ledge, and while she knew it had been close, her fur was singed along her left arm but there were no holes. To work, then. Not daring to stand up even behind the turret, she left her pants off while fishing out her headset and wires, crawling around the base of the turret which was, incidentally, still tracking her as she did so. Finally finding a suitable data port, she plugged herself in.

2.4 itsa mee, shootio!

She was standing on a surprisingly well textured plane. Brick walkway, about twenty feet wide. Fifty feet in front of her was a platform floating about eight feet up, and ten feet across, Standing on it was either a turtle, or an armadillo. The low resolution of the avatars made this a little unclear, but he was the defense here. Lifting a hand, he grabbed nothing, but now had a jet black sledge hammer in his hand, which by the way was glowing now.

He threw the hammer. _Dogslobber that's coming fast._ She jumped, hoping it would bounce off the bricks below her. She hit her head against ... something. An invisible box, scarcely sixteen inches on a side. If she let herself fall now, that hammer would break her knees, so she reached around her head and grabbed the box and pulled her legs up. The hammer hit the ground with a report like a gunshot, and vanished. The guard had already summoned another hammer, but Morgana saw it was coming in at the same arc, so she tried to pull her whole body up onto the small, invisible box.

It was a small surface, made smaller by the handle near one edge. _Container?_ She kicked around to her left and right, and found, far too far apart for comfort but not to far apart for physicality, two other invisible boxes. Performing the splits, she stood up above the box in the middle, and opened it. The inside was much bigger than the outside, and it contained some sort of rotary barreled arm cannon.

She scarely pulled it out before realizing the guard had, on his fourth throw, readjusted for her height, and had to drop back to the ground to avoid getting hit with the explosive hammers. There was no visible ammunition counter, but in this place that might not mean anything. Jamming her right arm into the 'sleeve' she quickly found the handle, trigger, and took aim even as another hammer, already on target to hit her, and Morgana opened fire on the ... hard scaled metalsmith.

The 'recoil' was felt, but minor for the size and volume of giant balls of light. But will it deal damage, or power him up? The balls safely passed through the oncoming hammer, but set the armadillo on fire, and he wasn't too keen on the light show.

Oh, right. Hammer. Dodging as hard as she could the hammer hit the ground behind and to her right, missing her foot by mere inches. The 'bang' picked her up and tossed her almost to the wall, and her avatar accepted scuff marks, indicating her virtual health, her avatar's integrity, was partially damaged.

Still, there wasn't even a pile of ash where the metalsmith tosser had been. Wondering how strong the laws of physics were enforced here, she jumped up and was able to grab the edge of the ledge he'd been standing on. And was able to pull herself up, one handed, and walked around looking for clues or control boxes. There were none. There was a door however, about fifty feet away from her, on the ground.

But when she got to the edge of her current platform, another metalsmith materialized on the next platform, maybe fifteen feet away and the same height she was at. Firing almost without thinking, the second guard was unable to summon even a single hammer. Smirking smugly, she dropped to the ground (no damage or deceleration disorientation at all in this simulation) and walked to the door.

She was stopped by a 'click' to her left, and small poison dart flew out at nearly the speed of sound. Morgana felt the sting of at least six pins piercing her left arm, leg. But rather than damage her avatar's integrity, it destroyed the hand cannon. Feeling a little naked with no armament, she looked more closely at the ground, and realized the bricks she was walking had just changed color, from deep red to a dusty brown. That continued for another ten feet. Even with the adjusted physics in this place she couldn't leap past them, and she wasn't sure how damaging the pins themselves were, or how sensitive the bricks were.

As to the latter, as Morgana stepped back, she felt the air in front of her nose move as she heard a 'crack' of another volley of poison darts, one of which hit her in the ankle. The pain she was given wasn't intense, but it didn't back down, either. _Damage over time; a poison equivalent._ Finally free of the dart bricks she summoned her stats screen. _One hit point takes forty seconds. Still have ten minutes assuming it never eases up_. But she had to assume their effect was cumulative, too.

She saw how she was supposed to bypass the security. Walking back to the edge of the second platform, she jumped up, and walked to the edge. It came to within ten feet or less of that door, and the bricks here were plain red ones. Hopping down she was able to walk to the door. Up close, it was actually just an inky blackness, with no indication of what was on the other side. Shrugging, Morgana reached out and touched the black spot, and the world around her dropped rapidly in resolution, swapped to a new color palette, and came back into focus. She was inside a brick room (all the bricks were the same color, she quickly noted) and the room was circular, with three wooden levers on the far wall, all in the upright position.

The sound of chains moving sounded above her, and the 'ceiling', hundreds of feet above, began to descend. It was actually a steel grate, and she could see through it there was a huge ... armadillo/turtle thing. This one was green, so turtle was maybe a little more likely, but it had two glowing hammers, one in each hand, and was now laughing maniacally, loudly, continuously.

Moving as quickly as she could, ankle still hurting, she ran across the room and pulled down the wooden handle with the small fire under it. It was the farthest to the right, thus matching the turret position she had entered through. No change yet. She pulled the next two. By now the grate, falling fast enough to crush her without any attack per-se from the green giant metalsmith, was less than fifty feet above. When the third lever was down, it stopped instantly, as did the laugh track.

The bricks above the three levers redefined themselves to be a sign, which read "I'm sorry the maintenance console is in another room. Please go and make adjustment there." Sneering at their little games, she summoned her own console and jacked out, instead.

**2.5 What is a door? Where do you find one?**

Putting her pants on, Morgana found the turret had not completely missed. Both legs now had lengthy rips, with material missing for some length, from a couple or three bullets that ripped through the clothing she'd tied to her backpack.

The turrets had exposed another panel now, with another data jack, presumably for reprogramming, and their power cord. _Nema C13. Cute._ She unplugged each in turn, and heard the cooling fans go quiet. The evening was still free of cricket calls, but the smell of rotting vegetation seemed more surreal in the resulting silence. Amidst that surreality, arose Tammi, who had her eyes closed, her legs crossed, and her palms down. While there was no visible rocket-spray output, Tammi had explained once that for this spell, the force came specifically out of her palms, allowing her to push against the ground. Thus, she'd say, she was not 'flying' nearly 'pushing herself to the next level'

Which in this case was the roof of the target building. Landing atop it, Tammi opened her eyes and stood up. "I don't suppose you've found, like, an access hatch while you were waiting for us to find you? Alex has already been around the building and there's no obvious door."_Why would they seal up **every** opening?_

"The ad did ask about a mage. Maybe there's a magical door?" Morgana looked again at the turret mounts, hoping they could be disconnected, revealing an opening big enough to act as a door. But no, they had been cemented into place, and would not easily move. There was a higher spot, though. A cooling tower or the like. Too low to have a normal door, but perhaps there was an access panel on the top? Morgana hefted herself up to the upper ledge, and found no openings of any kind.

When she looked back at Tammi, she saw a round plate made of nothing but light in Tammi's hands. Strange symbols floated across the surface unreadable party because they were backwards, written for Tammi's benefit not Morgana's, and partly because despite being capable of reading backwards, and knowing two or three other script systems besides Furries-Common, Morgana had never seen that kind of writing. This wasn't the first time Morgana had seen this magical scope though, so she mentally shrugged and let her friend finish her search.

That search was marked with success, when Tammi gasped while looking at the back left corner, relative to their approach, of the roof. "Well there's a stairwell there, but of course its covered up by concrete."

"So, get Alex up here to stomp on it?" The roof shook a little bit as the aforementioned cat landed on the roof, having apparently launched herself from the ground.

"Alex stomp?" she asked the pair inquisitively.

Tammi shook her head rapidly, still staring through her magical scope. "No, that would trigger the _magical_ defenses." Walking closer, she appended after a breath, "And the unlock codes are a doozy. I just hope it won't require physical materials, since I didn't bring much of anything."

But she had brought a piece of chalk, and had already set to marking the supposed outline of the stairwell, and five empty boxes next to the ledge describing the left wall from their approach, and four lines, each of a different length, angle and none of them connected to anything. Just then, Alex zeroed in on the upper ledge that Morgana had climbed down from.

Tammi had sat herself on the ledge to stare at her empty boxes, and was doing something that made her claws glow; she had one hand against the first box, and was slowing moving the claws of her right hand in the air, occassionally touching the rooftop. Alex was swivelling her head back and forth between the horizon, far beyond the building and in the opposite direction from their approach, and the second ledge; apparently her robot eyes thought a tennis match had started, or equally possible she had blue-screened and was just crazy right now.

Morgana almost issued a reboot-safeword when Alex said "The pipes, they're calling the moors." But Alex wasn't doing anything else odd, so maybe she actually did see something. Morgana asked what she meant, and Alex turned the glowing eyes to her 'friend' and stared for a second, then blinked slowly. This indicated an intuitive leap; Alex just learned something she had taught herself. Hopefully it was right. Out loud now, Alex added "You would call it a radio transmission. There's a ham-radio transceiver in there" She pointed to the second ledge. "And somewhere off that way, someone is responding. The response signal is a pretty directional cone, so that means they're talking very specifically at that building." She pointed again to the upper level.

Tammi had, by this time, written a glyph in the first two boxes, and was skipping the middle to try and write something in the third. Morgana was going to ask if the sorceress had heard, but Tammi said "Hope they don't get here too soon. I don't dare rush this."

Morgana turned to Alex and thanked her for the update, while internalizing how creeped out she was the robot could see ham radio signals as _another color_. "Just tell us if you see anybody approaching; your night vision is a little better than ours, I think." A cat's night vision was nothing short of miraculous, but her friend had once been a hunter-killer in a robot-vs-meatsacks dystopian future. If she could see ham radio, she could probably also magnify stuff twenty or thirty times, and still make stuff out in the dead of night. _I'll have to look into that after this run_.

Tammi had written a fourth glyph, still leaving the middle blank. Now she was looking up to the sky, her eyes fluttering as she drew raw power. Morgana had heard a few explanations, as she would often ask, after the run was over, but wouldn't really pretend to have a hold on what magic wanted of its users. Tammi struck down at the blank box with a bright ball of energy, and the entire square crumbled into the darkened stairs. The first thirty feet would be treacherous with all that rubble, but the way looked open.

Alex blinked rapidly a few times, then turned to look at the ledge. "The building isn't very happy about something."

Morgana nodded. This was a run of adventure, and she admitted just now, to herself, she had not wanted a milk run. Drawing a flashlight and her bolt action pistol, she said "Lets not dilly dally then." And strode boldly to the top of the stairs, where Tammi was holding her brightly glowing claws above her head. _That might not blind **you**, but I'm sure feeling some discomfort here._ The stairwell was wide enough all three could walk abreast, though Alex had to duck for a moment when the stairs went under the remaining roof.

Halfway across the width of the warehouse the stairs had a small landing so it could make a u-turn and go back to the left most wall. Morgana could see a low handrail, suitable for two-foot-tall workers, and nothing caught the light beyond the wall or stairs. Another turn, with awkward half-stairs instead of a landing, and it finally ended at the far left corner of the whole building. The original doors and windows could be made out by paint and protrusions, but the opening themselves had been completely cemented up. The trio made their way through the open space, which smelled dusty, stale, and cold but not very moist at all; an odd change from the swamp outside. There appeared to be no provision for natural light, and while a few empty wooden crates had been left somewhat haphazardly, they were all empty, and devoid of markings. Morgana was about to say "This is weird. Lets blow the joint before anybody sees us" when the lights all caught several brightly colored reflections. So instead of cancelling the run she said "Those must be the gems."

"Lights are shiny; dots are colorful; rocks are crunchy.

Air is dry; ground is wet; the only power is guns."

Alex turned her head a bit, so Morgana could see her smirk. Morgana groaned inwardly but tried to not let it show too much. Or at all really but something had be be done to cut this nonsense off at the bud. Turning to the weapons specialist, who did not specialize in poetic thinking, she said "Alex? I'm sure you're impressed, but leave the poetry to the ... more poetic souls. That was truly awful."

2.6 Quit Dragon Yer' Feet!

Of course, it was a poetic moment, but something ... _Something moved. What was that?_ The dots, the gems they'd come for, were moving closer together on their own. Tammi screamed and dropped the light spell by casting an energy bolt at the line of dots, which were now racing towards them. Morgana got a single shot off, which went 'clang' and clearly bounced off the serpentine shape rapidly accelerating towards them. Alex hadn't seen anything she understood as a threat, so hadn't drawn any weapons yet.

Now it was illuminated by Morgana's flashlight. A dragon, with ruby eyes (literal rubies), a sapphire twinkling at the top of its head, and jade claws floating every so slightly above the pavement. Morgana got a second shot off, trying to hit one of the rubies. It shattered, and the dragon roared, first in pain, then in fire.

There was not visible fire, and no rushing sound of burning fuel, but the heat wave nearly pushed her over, melted her jacket against her coat, and probably gave her face second degree burns in that half a second between when the breath attack started and when Alex picked them both up and ran for the stairs.

It might have worked, actually. The dragon seemed confused by the stairs, and had just decided it would float up straight through the air to come at them from the mid-turn landing when Alex, reaching the first of the rubble from the once-roof, stumbled and dropped her charged roughly to the oh-so-hard ground. Tammi lost no time recovering, blasting a small, inneffectual bolt of energy against their attacker. Morgana needed a moment longer to twist, cycle her pistol, and take aim. The bullet clearly hit squarely between the eyes, just above in the middle of the thing's forehead. She had seen the spark as the copper jacket seperated from the lead, and both went loudly in opposite directions.

Tammi was currently, to all appearences, practicing Tai-Chi backwards at triple speed. Alex had finally righted herself and was unlatching her rotary pistol. In this amount of time the dragon had opened its mouth for another heat strike, but Tammi pushed out with her hands, and the magic pushed the whole dragons head aside. The lower half of the stairs creaked and groaned as the handrail twisted itself off and fell to the floor, and the concrete caught fire, providing a small moment of illumination.

For her third shot, Morgana aimed at the saphire on the top of its head. Again, the gem cracked, pieces falling through the sometimes-incorporeal body, and the dragon itself launched its entire body straight up, smacking into the roof and loudly biting its tongue as moment kept the body moving after hitting a stopping point. As it fell, apparently unconscious now, Tammi made fly-fishing motions, and the giant slinky jerked and twisted unnaturally, as the remaining eye, and two hunks of jade separated, flying to Tammi's feet, where they stayed quietly and normally the way gems usually do.

Tammi was stuffing the three stones into Alex's pockets when the dragon regained consciousness. It was blind, but still very angry. The sudden updraft didn't set anything on fire, but did buffet her hair something fierce. At least nothing caught fire this time. Having reloaded her pistol, she stared over the landing's edge, trying to understand what she was seeing. It seemed the sapphires were in lieu of dorsal scales. Jade for the claws, diamonds at each shoulder joint, and something large and orange marking the tip of the tail. As the creature was thrashing too much to shoot the tail she nailed the next sapphire back.

Again, the concrete crackled, tiny bits of organic material flared into a short lived candescence, and it was running around below them scraping madly with the remaining good talons, gouging deeply into the floor. Morgana couldn't tell but thought that the earth beneath had been exposed. _Or the next level down. Who knows what's going on in this crazy world._ To Tammi, she shouted, "Any chance you could retrieve one of those diamonds? Near the shoulder."

Tammi's glare could have done as much damage as the dragon's mouth, but she began her slow armwaving instead, concentrating on the nearer shoulder. Claws glowing, she reached out and pulled. Nothing. "Too tightly bound. Not at an edge like the eye was."

Alex had finally decided now was a good time to start shooting. Spraying bullets madly across the middle of the dragon from the hip halfway back down the tail, she unleashed enough bullets to hit two sapphires by accident. Luckily none of the missed bullets ricocheted back to strike the attacking thieves. The dragon silently screamed, thrashed, ran after whatever was biting its tail. The sudden motion was enough to pull Tammi most of the way to the edge, and might have pulled her clear off but for Morgana tackling her back onto the rubble covered stairs. As they landed, the diamond thunked her in the back of the head.

Finding and grabbing the large, clear rock she shouted "Good enough lets run!" and got up to run. Alex stopped shooting so she could turn and run, this time taking a few extra milliseconds to dodge the rubble, and Tammi skipped all of that entirely and just levitated herself to the opening where she was able to land on her feet.


End file.
